Half-snout ‘heroine’ bitch set for $20,000 face surgery in US

Kabang, the uninsured mongrel in the Philippines became an overnight
heroine when her snout and the upper jaw were sliced off as she
reportedly threw herself into the path of a speeding motorcycle just as
it was about to hit two young girls crossing a roadway in Zamboanga
City.

The lunge, prevented death or serious injury to the daughter and
niece of Kabang's owner, but the motorcycle's spokes sheared off much of
the dog's face. Word of the “hero dog” spread around the world, and a
remarkable grass-roots campaign started after photographs of her
gruesome injury began to circulate.

Kabang, had her snout and upper jaw
sheared off when she leapt in front of a speeding motorcycle
just before Christmas last year in an apparent attempt to
save two little girls in Zamboanga City, Philippines. The
dog, which has become a national hero and an
international sensation, is being brought to UC Davis for
reconstructive surgery.

The canine, has only half a snout. Her tongue lolls impossibly out of
her skull. Watching her attempt to eat a mound of rice is heartbreaking.

But, donors from around the world have pitched in enough cash
($20,000) to fly Kabang to the US for re-constructive facial surgery.

She was brought to the veterinary hospital after donations from 20
countries poured in, enough to pay for airfare and treatment. Facebook
and Twitter accounts, the website careforkabang.com and pet lovers’
blogs, many of which have considerable followings in San Francisco and
around the Bay Area, were an integral part of the effort.

Kabang was brought to the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical
Teaching Hospital, at UC Davis, where a team of veterinarians looked
over her wounds.

The gruesome injury puts her in grave danger of developing an
infection. At minimum, the gaping wound must be closed, a delicate
procedure that is beyond the capability of veterinarians in the
Philippines. It turned out Kabang's ghastly wound was only part of the
problem. Veterinarians found the hound also had heart worm, a parasitic
roundworm, spread by mosquitoes, that can cause congestive heart
failure. The veterinarians said worms were seen in her pulmonary
arteries.

The miracle mutt was also diagnosed with an aggressive
sexually-transmitted cancer, called progressive venereal tumour. Both
ailments are common in tropical and subtropical regions where dogs run
loose, veterinarians say.

The four-legged heroine recently completed six weekly intravenous
chemotherapy infusions. She was given antibiotics and monthly heart-worm
prevention medication throughout, but full-on treatment to get rid of
the worms had to wait until the cancer treatment was finished. She had
the first of three powerful arsenic-based heart worm shots.

Kabang is now at a nearby medical boarding facility on forced bed
rest to prevent the dead worms from circulating in her bloodstream and
causing clots. The final two doses of heart-worm medicine are planned 24
hours apart in the second week of January. It will be one to two months
for her to recover from that before she goes in and has the surgery.

The hospital surgeons are currently planning two or three separate
procedures, the first involving dental work, extractions and the
covering of exposed roots. After that, the surgeons will try to close
the gaping wound and restore whatever nasal functions they can.

“We are pleased with what we discovered,” said Frank Verstraete, one
of the veterinary surgeons who conducted an hour-long exam that included
blood and urine tests. “We are confident we can improve her condition
going forward.”

Verstraete and fellow surgeon Boaz Arzi said they anticipate that
Kabang will need at least two surgeries over the next six weeks, one
focusing on dental work and the other to close the gaping wound on her
face. The campaign to help Kabang was spearheaded by Karen Kenngott, a
longtime critical care nurse from Buffalo, N.Y., who organised a
fund-raising campaign that raised more than $20,000 in donations from 20
different countries, enough to pay for surgery, airfare, visas,
passports and a hotel stay for the dog and her handlers.

Kabang, referred to in newspapers in the Philippines as the “hero
dog,” flew into Los Angeles International Airport with Anton Lim, her
local veterinarian. Her owner, Rudy Bunggal, had to stay home apparently
because he could not locate a valid birth certificate and was unable to
obtain a visa or passport. Kabang's unprecedented journey actually began
nearly two years ago in a swamp near Zamboanga, when the 57-year-old
Bunggal found an abandoned puppy in a paddy field.

He initially kept the dog with the intention of fattening it up and
feeding it to his family, a practice that is not uncommon in the
Philippines, but his daughter, Dina, 11, and niece, Princess, 3, grew
close to the dog, according to numerous published accounts.

They named her Kabang, which means “spotty” in their native Visayan
language, and the dog became very protective of the girls.

Police officer’s chase after himself

An undercover police officer “chased himself round the streets” for
20 minutes after a CCTV operator mistook him for a suspect.

This is a funny and an embarrassing experience for a probationary
police officer from Sussex Police, UK, which appeared in the Police
Magazine published by Police Federation. The junior officer, who had not
been named, was monitoring an area hit by a series of burglaries in an
unnamed market town in the country’s south. As he searched for suspects,
the CCTV camera operator radioed that he had seen someone “acting
suspiciously” in the area.

But he failed to realise that it was actually the plain-clothed
officer he was watching on the screen.

The operator directed the officer, who was on foot patrol, as he
followed the “suspect” on camera, telling his colleague on the ground
that he was “hot on his heels”.The officer spent around 20 minutes
giving chase before a sergeant came into the CCTV control room,
recognised the “suspect” and laughed hysterically at the mistake.

Sussex police were unable to provide further details of the incident,
the officers involved or where it occurred. The senior officer, believed
to be the PC's sergeant, told the monthly magazine: “An officer who
joined a team in Sussex as a new probationary officer was soon very keen
to do any plain-clothes operations and be as proactive as possible.

“He would be waiting at the end of his shift hoping to be unleashed
for a further couple of hours of plain-clothes duties.

“On one such occasion in a little market town in Sussex which has
suffered a spate of town centre shop break-ins, officers were on
plain-clothed foot patrol when a report was received of a suspect male
in one of the side roads.”

“The CCTV operator soon had the suspect on camera and everywhere he
saw the male the keen PC was on his heels - radioing in to say he was in
the same street.” He said: “Every time the man darted in to another side
alleyway, the PC was turning immediately into the same alleyway, but
every time the CCTV operator asked what he could see there was no
trace.”

It was at this point that the sergeant entered the control room where
he recognised the junior officer. “With the sergeant's sides aching from
laughter he pointed out to the PC that the operator had been watching
him unaware that he was a pain-clothes officer - thus the PC had been
chasing himself round the streets.”